Editor:
A primary focus of many of the May 3 Letters to the Editor was, as is often the case these days, climate change. Of particular interest to me was the letter by Ross Hay-Roe. He quotes a “thoughtful comment” by MIT professor Richard Lindzen on the “hysterical panic” over a global temperature increase of a “few tenths of a degree.”
A short (43 seconds) online search revealed that Lindzen served as a professor at MIT from 1983 to 2013 and is now at the Cato Institute, a Washington, D.C. conservative think tank. Lindzen recently sent a letter to President Trump urging him to pull the United States out of the United Nations’ climate program because global climate action is “not scientifically justified.” MIT’s climate researchers and faculty rapidly responded with their own open letter:
“As [Lindzen’s] colleagues at MIT in the Program in Atmospheres, Oceans and Climate, all of whom are actively involved in understanding climate, we write to make it clear that this is not a view shared by us, or by the overwhelming majority of other scientists who have devoted their professional lives to careful study of climate science.”
So enough climate change denial already – the debate, such as it was, is over. And should we take the “life-lessons of fifth-graders” seriously? Absolutely – they already suffer the consequences of our disastrous environmental inaction and are better informed on climate change than most! The May 3 “Climate Strike” by millions of students worldwide, demanding action on climate change from global leaders and local politicians, is the latest evidence that young people understand the problem and are committed to doing something about it.
Ray Kostaschuk, Garden Bay
